Methodology

Why this exists

I wanted to know where my tax went, and I couldn't find out.

Not because it's secret. It isn't. The Australian Government publishes an enormous amount about what it spends, and it does it properly. The problem is that it's published for people who work in procurement. The portal assumes you know what a contract notice is. The descriptions are written in a language that makes sense if you write tenders for a living and almost none if you don't.

So the information is public in the legal sense and invisible in every practical sense. That gap is the only reason this site exists.

There's no argument being made here. I'm not suggesting the spending is wasteful, or well-spent, or anything at all. I don't know, and this site isn't equipped to tell you. What it does is take records that were already public and lay them out so an ordinary person can read them in about ten seconds: who got paid, by which department, how much, and what for.

What you make of it is your business. I'd rather hand you the number and the link to prove it than tell you what to think about it.

If that sounds like a small thing to build a website over, I'd agree. It should already exist. It mostly does. It's just very hard to read.

How it works

Data source: contract notices published on AusTender by the Department of Finance. Figures are shown in Australian dollars as published.

Plain-English descriptions are written from the department's own wording. The original wording is shown on every contract page.

Contract notices do not cover all federal spending. Grants, payments to individuals, and spending inside agencies are not included.